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Should general practitioners refer more of their elderly depressed patients to psychiatric services?
Author(s) -
Jenkins D.,
Macdonald A.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.930090604
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , psychiatry , medicine , multidisciplinary team , multidisciplinary approach , geriatrics , geriatric psychiatry , elderly people , gerontology , nursing , social science , sociology , economics , macroeconomics
As part of a prevalence and recognition study of 336 elderly attenders at GP surgeries, 65 with high depression scores (who had not been referred for specialist psychiatric services) were randomly allocated either to 9 months' treatment by a multidisciplinary community psychogeriatric team or to continued management by their GP. At follow‐up, elderly men treated by the team had done better than those cared for by their GP, but this was not statistically significant. There was no difference in outcome for elderly women, nor for the group as a whole. It is suggested that while larger studies are awaited, elderly depressed men might profitably be referred to specialist services more often than at present.